Gang leaders freed by Bukele government tell El Faro how government cut deals with them over years
Today the world is paying attention to Nayib Bukele, the president-jailer who cut a deal with the US to imprison persons the US sought to deport. Now the world may learn more of Bukele's back story since the journalists at El Faro have released video interviews of two leaders of the 18 Revolucionarios gang, one of three gangs which long controlled neighborhoods throughout El Salvador. They describe how Bukele's team has made deals with gang leaders throughout the Salvadoran president's political career, up to the rupture with the gangs marked by Bukele's imposition of the State of Exception in El Salvador. The interviews were conducted by Oscar and Carlos Martinez, journalist brothers who have been reporting on the gangs and their dealings with politicians and government officials for more than a decade. They published the interviews in a series of long video segments here . One of the two gang members is Carlos Cartagena López, aka "Charli de IVU", a lead...